After experiencing stuff like that, how do you continue to do your job without getting freaked out?

Quoting: tandym

I quit. 8 years ago, now I work as a system analyst but also have a degree on physics.I just can't stand that. Do you have any idea of how it is to see a dead body of a children, brutally raped, spanked and murdered?

After experiencing stuff like that, how do you continue to do your job without getting freaked out?

Quoting: tandym

I could write stories from the morgue for days. There are dozens of creepy. Some happened to me, some to other coroners. If you want, I can tell more, specifically about supernatural stuff..

Quoting: CripplingLies

Please do!

..."The soul is dyed the color of its thoughts. Think only on those things that are in line with your principles and can bear the light of day. The content of your character is your choice. Day by day, what you choose, what you think, and what you do is who you become. Your integrity is your destiny ... it is the light that guides your way."Heraclitus

Years ago I lived in a haunted house for about 5 years. I was once very skeptical but after living in that house, it made me re-evaluate my belief in the afterlife. Experience alone is all the proof you will ever need.

Here goes another one:It was a thursday night, the morgue is in the "end" of a cemetery, I mean you gotta cross the whole cemetery to get there. Therefore is a very quiet place to get some sleep. I was pushing forth shift, very tired so I decided to take a nap. Went to the room, upstairs, away from the morgue itself, like a small apartment on the second floor. I was all alone, literally, not a living soul around. Well, I lay down to try to get some sleep, despite I was pretty tired, I wasn't getting to sleep, you know, sometimes you are so tired that even sleep is difficult, don't know if you experienced this also. Since I couldn't sleep, I setup the XBox to play a little bit. I was playing there, the TV is close to the bed, so I was sitting on the bed. The door, was at my right side, there was a window in the left, and it was really, really quiet outside. Often I hear owls and other night creatures(like bats, possums and rats), but that night, not a squeak. The window was open and there's not "door" on the right, the "door" is only a plastic curtain, like made out of beads, you know the type. In this kind of curtain, you can't see clearly through, you can only see figures, not define exactly who it is. Even more when its dark in the other side.Anyway, I was playing there and I heard a weird noise, I can't explain how it was, it sounded a bit like a sound being played backwards, in reverse. I thought my mind was playing tricks and didn't pay attention to it. Then a loud boom, so loud, that my ears started to ring, you know, that very high pitched sound you hear when you experience some real loud sound. The strange thing about it, is that the graveyard keeper, also heard it and came by to see what in the world happened. Well, I said, I just heard it, saw nothing. He stayed a little bit watching me play the video game(waiting for his turn), when he tapped in my shoulder, very softly. I didn't looked at him, then he grabbed my shirt and made me watch to the door. There was a "ball of foggy light", I can't describe what it was, but imagine a ball made out of luminous fog. It was like one of these "fortune tellers" crystal balls, but it was not made of crystal, it was fog, luminous fog, that's the closest description I can get to. I researched it I found out that it might possibly be a "ball lightning", a very rare phenomena.

Ok, here it goes:As usual, I was there, in the morgue, filling out paperwork about a suicide. It was mid-afternoon, about 3pm and it was a cloudy, windy afternoon of a saturday. I don't know why, but saturdays, cloudy and windy, suicides spike up, I think people feel depressed, don't know, but that's not the point. Well, the phone rang. I was already thinking it was another suicide, not this time. Police found the corpse of a mid-age wealthy man, carbonized in his bedroom. Ok, here I go again. Set tools up, camera and went to the place. It was a nice house, old but have been through many reforms, VERY big, I heard later that it was a hotel 30 years ago and a "senzala"(a place where slaves are kept, don't know the word in english, sorry) before that. Ok, even if nobody was there to indicate me where the body was, I could just follow the smell. If you think that human flesh when burnt smells like burnt beef, you're dead wrong. It smells sweet, almost like sugar burnt to make caramel. The body was completely burnt, even some smaller bones were burnt, which is very unusual, since to burn bones, a very high temperature (870–980 °C - 1600–1800 °F) and constant air supply is needed, in other words, is not easy. I thought it was really odd, because the room itself was not burnt that much, only some parts of the carpet, sheets, some paintings and some parts of the furniture. The scene was obvious, the man lit on fire somehow, and started to run like crazy in the bedroom, touching many parts of it to finally fall down and die an awfull, painfull death. This was not the first time I saw something like this. What kind of fire can burn flesh and bone but not wood and fabric? Well, regular procedures, pictures, sketches, body picking up and to the morgue. Just to mention, the clothes I was wearing, I toss out, the smell just won't leave. Back in the morgue, I started regular procedures for carbonized bodies. There's not much material to collect(blood, urine, feces, hypophises...) so, I just open the body, trying to look for something that can help the investigations. To my surprise, the interior was even more burnt than the outside, I mean, it looked like the body burnt from inside out. His organs were reduced to small pieces of coal. It was when I noticed something really, really odd: There was one part in his scapula, very small part of skin that was NOT burnt. There was a tattoo in this specific part(which helped the family to recognize the body later), it was a drawing of a hand, with the thumb bent to the inside, almost like when you make a "4" with your hand, and on each side of this "hand", there was a weird cross, like a cross, but in the bottom of this cross, was something like a hook, like sickle. I took pictures of it and file them. When the procedures were done, I put the body in the fridge to begin embalming procedures. The next day, I took the body out to start rubbing the oils and stuff for the embalming, but at this time, the skin with the tattoo was not there. There was no signs of breaking, and I was there all night(filling the damn paperwork), so nobody came in. The fact is, the tattoo was not there anymore. At least the pictures were still in the file.

CL, I am wondering if you see any commonalities/links between all your experiences and whether you have come up with any possible explanations. And do coroners as a profession have an inside perspective on all this stuff?

CL, I am wondering if you see any commonalities/links between all your experiences and whether you have come up with any possible explanations. And do coroners as a profession have an inside perspective on all this stuff?

Quoting: Empath 29590362

Yes! I see lots of links between all my experiences. Explanations, are kinda tricky, things are not always what it seems to be. And yes, as a former coroner, I do have inside perspectives on all this. Many of the things I experienced, are well documented and are known phenomena, like that last case(the carbonized man), I'm pretty sure it was spontaneous combustion, despite I can't prove it with something irrefutable.

Marking this thread so i can come back later when im at my computer and not on my phone........i have a pretty interesting picture...and im not sure i believe in ghosts really...but this picture is weird....

"Live each day like it's your last, love like you've never been hurt, and dance like no one is watching."

What would cAuse internal combustion? What was the official cause odd death? You should write a book! Or are there secrecy / confidentiality issues preventing that?

Quoting: Empath 29590362

Well, yes, there is a confidentiality issue. These are all police documents, I can discuss about it, but I cannot give names nor locations. But I'm allowed to say that I experienced it. Well, in the case of the carbonized man, the death cause was "carbonization", the case is still open, since no explanation was found on why it happened, if it was criminal arsening nor any witness. Some asked me to put the pictures here, unfortunately, I cannot, due to the confidentiality thing. Its police and justice information, its not meant to public nor allowed. If I do this, I'll certainly see "the squared sunrise" for a long time :)

I was revising my old personal notes, there some more cases of "supernatural" things that I had forgot about. I'll get here tonight to write it calmly, if I have the time. But I'll keep the stories coming, I'll try to write them all here.

Ok here goes another one:I was not in my shift, I was at home this time. Relaxing, playing the guitar(I really suck at it ), the cell phone rang. When I saw "Private number", I knew it was from the police office. Indeed. Well, there was a murder, simple murder, traffic discussion, one of the guys was armed, and shot the other one dead. Very simple case. I told the deputy that the intern could go pick the body and take the pictures and sketeches. He said, that it could be, the problem is the guy must be sent to another town, very far, about 300 miles away, so an embalming was necessary. Well, the intern couldn't do it, so I went down there. Some extra cash is always nice, since I was not in my shift, I'm paid double. Cool! Well, took me about 1 hour to get to the morgue, pick the stuff, the intern then leave to the crime scene. It took me one extra hour to get there, since the traffic was all stopped. The police closed two lanes of a very busy road. You can imagine the scene. When I got there, the deputy said that this dead man, was a judge in his town, so, take extra care with paperwork since its gonna be seen by many other important judges. Ok, I'll do it. Pictures, sketeches, marks bullets trajectory, very usual to me. I made the intern to do the heavy work, putting the body in the truck, that's the main interns function, do the hard work Well, in the morgue, I started with the usual procedures for embalming. The torso is open, brain took off. The torso is open in a singular way something like o>--<====Where the "o" is the head, the ">--<" the cut in the torso and the "====" the legs. I do it like this, because it gives me extra space to check the bowls(intestine). Since he was shot multiple times, there could be arteries ripped and they need to be mended. The embalming procedure is basically replacing the blood with a special fluid that makes the putrefaction process much slower, so, the body will not smell for a long time. It is made with a machine like a pump, like those used to fill tires with air. It basically pumps the blood out and the preservative fluid in.The brain is took off, because the carotid must be linked with the jugular vein, making a "circuit" for the fluid. If its not done this way, the preservative fluid will case the brain to literally explode, leaking through the nose, ears, mouth, a real mess.Ok, all the procedures done, pump loaded with the fluid, veins connected, visible leaking holes patched, time to pump it up. The machine was working for about 10 seconds and the body started to convulse, you know, like an epiletic attack, but softer. The intern was visibly nervous with that. I was like, yeah, cool... this is very normal, the blood is circulating again, so some involuntary reactions are expected. But this time it was different. The body, believe me, SAT DOWN BY HIMSELF!! Very uncommon. The intern turn from normal skin color to white, yellow, blue, white again and then a whitter shade of pale. He(the intern) took three steps behind and he pressed his whole body agains the wall, arms open, eyes in the size of dessert dishes, he looked to the door, he was about to run like hell, so I tried to calm him down, saying: Ok, now he's gonna ask for coffee, since he is up. It looked like the intern didn't understood a single word I said. He started to breath, like he had ran a whole marathon. Little by little, he started to calm down. I said it was impossible for that man to be alive, his brain was in a jug next to the table. And according to hollywood rules, he couldn't be a zombie, for the same reason. He smiled a half-hearted smile, and sat down. He was shaking incontrolably. Well, the procedure took about half an hour. I seamstress the torso, usual practice, the brain goes inside the torso. Why? Well, I think you never took a brain in your hands, its consistence is like pudim, and if you squeeze it, it doesn't come back like normal flesh, so putting it back inside the skull is kinda hard, that's why it goes inside the torso. I thought I would never hear from the intern again, but I was wrong, he came back to work. He never mentioned the case again thou...

CripplingLies, thats some creepy shit, read all of your posts. Just hope I dont have nightmares tonight.

Quoting: Anonymous Coward 28913566

Nah, its ok, I'm used to it. Besides I quit this job a long time. All I have now are memories of it, good friends I made there, several scary/disgusting/enranging things, but it doesn't scare me at all. Its fun you say that, yesterday some friends invited me to watch a terror movie, to me it was boring, to them, well, that's another story. I got some more stories to tell, I'll keep posting.

And to all reading, please forgive my bad english, I try my best to make myself as understandable as possible. But english is not my first language, so some things that I don't know the correct term, I try to explain what is.

And to all reading, please forgive my bad english, I try my best to make myself as understandable as possible. But english is not my first language, so some things that I don't know the correct term, I try to explain what is.

Quoting: CripplingLies

You're doing fine. I understood everything you wrote. You have some amazing stories. I cannot imagine the things you've seen, and the things you've had to deal with. I certainly could NOT do that job.

I will have to try to find the picture I took of my Grandpa. It was taken on Christmas day, just a few months after my Grandma had died. We had just moved into our new house, and I took a pic of him with the new camera my husband had bought me. In the pic, my Grandpa is sitting in an easy chair in the corner of our living room, but sitting on his chest is a ball of light so big it takes up his entire lap/chest area. I've never seen anything like it before, or since. I've always thought it was my Grandma there with us for Christmas....it was her favorite time of year. I thought I had printed out a copy of the picture, and also had it on the computer, but that was two computers ago, and I haven't been able to find the pic for 5 years(pic was taken 9 years ago this Christmas).

Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

Now, as I said, I'm not sure I believe in ghosts, and in "orbs" being in pics, but this picture freaks me out.

My brother passed away on New years day last year - so almost a year. This picture was taken at my parents house on Thanksgiving - me, hubby and our 3 boys. My brother and his fiancee were also there - it was the first time we've all been together and our first holiday together without my brother there.

Several people have told me it looks like an orb, and if thats true, I think its my brother. =)

"Live each day like it's your last, love like you've never been hurt, and dance like no one is watching."

As promised, another one. I know some of you will doubt about this one, but its true story.Well, it was about noon, a cold day. You got no idea hot cold it is in a morgue, and in a winter day, boy, my lips were blue and my fingers could barelly move. There was I, filling up paperwork, about a complicated case. This man, got shot 18 times, 5 in the head alone. Clearly a gangs reckoning(don't know if this word is right, but its like when one gang owns favor or money to the other and this other one just whacks someone on the rival gang). Well, this gang member specifically was a "red horned" a gang that acts in Brazilian slums, they deal with human traffic, executions, robbery, well, all kind of criminal activities. Besides all of these "normal" gang activities, they deal with kidnapping for occult rituals. They are well known because of that among police officers. Well, this guy probably did something very bad in the rival gang eyes. His death was brutal, with signs of defence attempt, to clarify, marks of shots in the hands, forearms, fingers, like trying to hold the bullets with the hands, I think you understand. Well, about this gang, you'll probably won't find too much on the internet, they're "work" serve the elites, they're the ones who perform these rituals(I mentioned one of them in a previous post). Well, moving on. The guy was a mess, he had marks of bullet all over, nasty cuts, marks of severe beating, well, long story short, he was tortured, for a not short period of time, then executed. I was there filling up the papers, when someone knocked on the door, something VERY unusual. It was a well dressed man, with fancy clothes, gold watches, gold rings(huge ones), well, aparently a man of mean(I just learned this one , they told it means a wealthy man). He asked about the murder, I said I couldn't give any information about it, that's the law. He smiled and said: "Good boy"(sort of, he said in portuguese, I couldn't find a propper translation, since he said a slang); To get where he was there were 3 other rooms, the morgue itself, where the bodies are, must be closed all the time. The man asked if he could wait a little bit outside, I said, well, its a free country. He smiled again and went out. I got back to paperwork, when about half an hour later, again, a knock on the door. This time was the head doctor of the "IML" of the region we were(it stands for "Instituto Médico Legal", translating: Legal Medic Institute), in other words, he was the boss, of the boss, of the manager, of the boss, of my boss, someone I must obey without question, regarding my work. The first man was right beside him, he said to the the boss of the boss... that I did my job very well, not giving him any information and not letting him see the body. Well(said the boss, of the boss...), now we want to see it. I said no problem, just fill in the "watching memo", a document that states that someone "saw" the body. They did it and I conducted them to the morgue. He put on the gloves, while the man of the gold jewelry, covered the mouth with a white scarf. Turns out, complimented the quality of the incisions and asked if anyone from the family already claimed the body. None, the poor bastard probably didn't had anyone for him. The (boss of the boss...), said: Ok then, give the brown stack(the brown stack is a stack of forms that sends a "John Doe" to the furnace), I did, he very quickly filled, signed and stamped the form, he didn't even put the pen back in the pocket and called another town's morgue truck to come by and pick the body to take it to another town for storing, then to "aknowledge" the body to take it to a forth town to be cremated(this increases the amount of paperwork many times, making difficult to track the body). In less than 1 hour the truck was there. Meanwhile they asked me to "grab a smoke" outside, where they chit-chat with me about trivial stuff. Never heard about the body again and it never shown up in the computer, not even a peep.